NOW TV Concept

Project Goals

This personal initiative was undertaken as a comprehensive conceptual redesign of the existing NOW website and Smart TV application. The primary objective was to demonstrate a deep understanding of user experience design by engineering a more efficient, highly intuitive streaming platform that directly addresses existing user friction points.

Driven by a user-centric philosophy, the project focused heavily on removing navigational barriers and modernising the core interface. The overarching goal was to deliver a frictionless viewing experience that seamlessly connects users with their desired content faster, elevating the overall quality of the digital product.

Execute Competitor Analysis: Conduct thorough research into rival streaming platforms to establish industry benchmarks and identify clear opportunities for interface innovation.
Prioritise User Experience: Overhaul the visual hierarchy and layout to place the user's needs at the forefront, creating a highly intuitive and seamless digital product.
Minimise Required Clicks: Strategically restructure the platform's navigational architecture to significantly reduce the cognitive load and physical steps needed to discover and access content.
Streamline the Viewing Interface: Redesign the Smart TV video player to eliminate unnecessary clutter, ensuring that the most frequently used elements are prioritised for a cleaner, user-centric experience.

TV App Menu

To address navigational friction within the Smart TV application, the core menu architecture was entirely re-evaluated. The primary objective was to streamline content discovery by reducing unnecessary interactions and cognitive load. By shifting from a hidden, text-heavy list to a persistent visual hierarchy, the new design allows users to navigate between content categories far more efficiently.

Existing

In the current application, navigating between different content categories introduces unnecessary friction. A user must first click a generic "Menu" button, which then expands to reveal the available categories. This multi-step process requires at least two clicks for the user to access their desired content area, slowing down the overall browsing experience.

Updated

To solve this, I introduced a compact, persistent vertical menu utilising highly recognisable category icons. This visual approach allows for clear and easy navigation, completely removing the initial click barrier. For users who prefer explicit labels, an extension button was retained; selecting "Menu" smoothly expands the sidebar to reveal the full category names and additional secondary options.

Video Player

A core focus of the redesign was overhauling the Smart TV video player to create a more immersive and less intrusive viewing environment. By critically evaluating the on-screen elements, the goal was to reduce visual clutter and deliver a much cleaner interface that is significantly easier on the eye.

Existing

The current Video Player on the Smart TV App occupies a massive portion of the screen with a heavy dark overlay. The interface also includes a lot of scattered information that could be minimised or eliminated entirely. This includes technical data, such as stream quality numbers, that unnecessarily clutters the screen and offers little value to the average viewer.

Updated

To resolve this, the overall design was streamlined to strictly prioritise the most frequently used elements of the Video Player. Unnecessary technical data was completely removed, while secondary information, like channel logos and broadcast ratings, was logically grouped and repositioned to the top right to keep the focal area clear.

By reorganising these less essential elements, I was able to increase the scale of the primary show title for better legibility. Finally, the heavy black block was replaced by incorporating a subtle gradient utilising brand colours, creating a much cleaner, modern, and user-centric experience.

Home Dashboard

The landing experience of the TV application required a structural update to improve content discovery and provide better promotional real estate for the platform. The goal was to balance business objectives, like pushing new releases, with the user's immediate need to resume their current viewing.

Existing

The current Home Page primarily features standard thumbnail images and video titles arranged in simple rows. The layout lacks a dedicated, high-impact area to effectively showcase specific TV shows or newly released movies, which limits the platform's ability to promote key content to viewers as soon as they log in.

Updated

To resolve this, I incorporated a prominent, full-width hero banner at the very top of the page to display promotional materials for highlighted titles. This visually engaging section includes a direct "Watch Now" call to action button and an easy option for users to add the show to their "My TV" list for future viewing.

Directly below this hero banner, a "New and Trending" row provides the platform with additional space to push secondary priorities. Crucially, the layout was carefully balanced to ensure the "Continue Watching" row remains clearly visible just beneath, allowing users to effortlessly resume their favourite shows without excessive scrolling.

Smart Skip Recap Integration

A significant friction point for modern streaming users is the interruption of repetitive recaps during consecutive viewing sessions. To create a more fluid viewing experience, a contextual skip feature was conceptualised to keep users immersed in their content.

Existing

At present, the NOW application does not offer a dedicated "Skip Recap" option. Because of this limitation, users are required to sit through full recaps even if they are watching multiple episodes back to back, which disrupts the flow of the series and slows down content consumption.

Updated

I proposed an automated, time sensitive enhancement to solve this issue. If the platform registers that a user has already watched the series within the last 48 hours, the recap will automatically skip after a five second timer. To ensure the user remains in complete control, a subtle on screen overlay is displayed, providing a clear option to manually watch the recap if they wish to jog their memory.

The Blueprint

1. UX Research & Navigation Strategy

The initial phase focused on identifying existing friction points within the NOW TV ecosystem. The primary objective was to evaluate the current interface against industry standards and map out a more intuitive, user-centric architecture that prioritises effortless content discovery.

Interaction Optimisation

Replaced text heavy, multi step navigation with a persistent, icon based vertical sidebar to drastically reduce the required click depth.
Prioritised visual hierarchy by ensuring core categories are immediately accessible upon launch, removing the need to expand secondary menus.

Interface Modernisation

Overhauled the Smart TV video player by stripping away unnecessary technical data that cluttered the primary viewing area.
Replaced harsh, opaque black blocks with subtle brand aligned gradients to create a more immersive and less intrusive viewing environment.

2. Feature Engineering & Engagement

Once the core navigational flow was streamlined, the focus shifted to conceptualising intelligent features designed to increase user retention, promote key titles, and maintain viewing momentum.

Content Discovery

Engineered a high impact, full width promotional hero banner on the homepage to drive immediate engagement with new releases and priority shows.
Integrated quick action buttons directly into the promotional banners, allowing users to watch instantly or save titles to their watchlist for later viewing.

Viewing Continuity

Conceptualised a context aware 'Smart Skip Recap' feature that tracks viewing history within a 48 hour window to automatically bypass redundant show recaps.
Ensured the user remains in complete control by providing a clear, time sensitive on screen overlay to manually watch the recap if desired.

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